Earliest Memory...

Have you ever been asked what is your earliest memory? Hmmm--makes you think, and to be honest the more time you take to think about it the further back you can get. I have read that age 3 tends to be the earliest most people can recall a memory.

I first came to this question when I was working on a Mother's Memory book for my daughter when she got married. It starts way back to my mother and works it's way to my daughter on her wedding day. It was in those pages that the question was posed; What is your earliest memory? Every time I was ready to write something down, I came up with a new one, so decided to spend a couple of days mulling it over. Finally I found that I could not go back any further; the memory that I came up with was of my Great Grandma.

Great Grandma lived across the field from us; you could see her house from our kitchen window and we had a trail through the hay field to her place. I remember walking in her house where a a trap door to the cellar lay directly in front of the door. It was covered with a throw rug and there was no way to get into the house without walking over this door. My memory is of fear; that I might fall down through that door into the dark cellar! I recall the wood burning kitchen stove facing me as I stood there, the kitchen table with the oil cloth covering, to the right of me and the parlor to the left. I remember the feeling of love when I was with her, and her sitting in a burgundy velvet upholstered, high back rocking chair, reaching out to me with a smile:)

I could go on to tell you more, but that would no longer be MY memory; it would be of stories I have heard from other family members.

As I wrote of this in my daughter's book, I had to go back and figure out how old I would have been at this time. Well, my Great Grandma died in 1956; I was 3 years old...

Wishing you moments of going back to your earliest memory.